


What The Water Gave Me

by Pythia (anroisin)



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, F/M, M/M, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Songfic, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-11 00:24:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2045982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anroisin/pseuds/Pythia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy has touched him, but never held him. The ocean seems an appropriate substitute for the arms of the son of Poseidon. He imagines being swept into them, clasped against a firm chest, cradled close and bathed in warmth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What The Water Gave Me

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this almost a year ago and while I'm not strictly unhappy with it, I'm not really happy with it either. The song I wrote it for is actually not the one that gave me the title, although they are on the same album; title is from What The Water Gave Me (duh) and fic was written to Never Let Me Go, from Ceremonials by Florence + The Machine.

Alone in his cabin at camp, two months after the war, Perseus Jackson is having a nightmare.  

He always dreams in sharp clarity, vivid detail; often his nightmares are even clearer. He’s had nothing but nightmares, it feels like, since four of the seven demigods of the prophecy returned, victory empty in the face of its cost.  

Annabeth came running the first time, knife drawn; it takes the camp almost a week to learn that there’s nothing they can do against the monsters in Percy’s own head and to ignore the nightly screaming from Poseidon’s cabin. Annabeth isn’t sleeping at all; most nights she sits outside and keeps watch, ready to wake and quiet him as quickly as possible. The Hephaestus cabin, minus Leo, is working on soundproofing his walls, but for the time being he relies on her embrace to muffle his terror and grief.

I know, she mutters, I know, and every night he wets her shirt with the flashbulb memory of another comrade falling, another alternate ending, visions of the camp in flames. Prophetic dreams are fewer, perhaps because of the peace that the younger demigods can enjoy, that Percy will never be able to forget was bought with the blood of his friends.

There are three of them left now, four if the knowledge that Leo is alive with Calypso in Morocco is enough to ease the ache of knowing he’ll never be back. Percy understands it; losing Piper hit him harder than anyone but Jason, who took a spear for Annabeth twenty minutes later and smiled as he died. Leo will never be able to see camp without their ghosts in every shadow.

For Percy, there is too much pain within for it to matter what comes from without, and sometimes seeing the kids laugh as they train for a war they’ll never have to face is enough to make him smile. He stays, and so Annabeth stays, and sometimes they get Iris messages from Hazel that tell them things in New Rome are okay, too. Sometimes, that’s enough of a comfort to bring him a good night where he only wakes up gasping.

Good nights are few and far between. Tonight isn’t one of them. Tonight, he’s on the beach with the shell of Nico di Angelo, icy water lapping at their ankles, and he can’t speak or reach out to stop him when he begins to wade into the surf.

\--

Maybe he’ll end up in Tartarus.

Maybe he’ll spend forever in the fields of punishment, reliving his short, miserable life. Maybe he’ll just stay in the fields of asphodel, muttering vaguely to the other souls about the love that was never his to lose. Elysium isn’t an option; that’s where Jason and Piper and Frank are, where Hazel and Leo and Annabeth and Percy will all go. It might as well be Tartarus if he still has to hide from the searing brightness of Perseus Jackson’s spirit, from the gods-damned solar flares he emits when in the same room as his soulmate.

Besides, heroes are brave. Suicide is for cowards. He’s up to his knees in the Long Island sound, his heavy jeans already weighing him down.

He feels stupid, doing this--a son of Hades knows that death is nothing like sleep, not even remotely peaceful; his best option is an eternity of boredom and his worst is an eternity of torment. He’s here anyway, the tide pulling at him like a magnet. Maybe his father will take pity him and douse him in the Lethe. He wouldn’t have to worry about Gaea--maybe he wouldn’t be a half-blood at all. He could live a new life in blissful ignorance, one where Percy Jackson didn’t exist at all.

No matter how it ends, it has to end, and it has to end tonight. Jason was his last thread of hope that things could be different. Now, Jason is gone and Nico is alone, Percy’s screams echoing in his head long after he disappears into the shadows of Cabin Three.

His shirt billows as the water reaches his hips. Two months he’s been watching, and Percy never once noticed him; once, Annabeth met his eyes for a long minute as Percy shook in her arms, but he couldn’t hold her piercing gaze for longer than a moment before he had to back away.

He stopped going to Cabin Three after that. He took to spending his sleepless nights on the beach, staring out at the waves, huddled in his jacket as though it would shield him. Tonight, as he watched the sea roll over the sand, he was hit with the sudden realization that he was the problem. After that, the solution was easy.

It doesn’t matter how it ends, as long as it does. Eternity in the fields of punishment will be no worse than watching silently over Percy Jackson’s terror-filled sleep.

With the water up to his chest, he kicks off, then dives.

\--

Annabeth Chase isn’t used to being wrong.

She tries to remind herself that emotions are not her strong point, that she and Percy might as well be sewn at the hip, that it was a logical conclusion to make and she isn’t stupid for having made it. All of her mental justifications pale under the weight of the longing she saw when she looked up from Percy’s shoulder and directly into Nico di Angelo’s dark eyes.

Half cloaked in shadow already, he disappeared before she had time to do anything but stare, and then Percy was crying into her neck and nothing mattered but holding him until he returned from Tartarus or the battlefield or the Princess Andromeda--wherever his dreams had dragged him to. Once his sobs quieted, she pushed him down like always, stroked sweat-damp hair back from his face like always, kissed him like always, and promised to hold him until he woke again. Sometimes, she could get a little sleep like this, with Percy’s head on her heart and their hands clasped, but that night her mind spun in even faster circles.

_It was never me. Of course it wasn’t. How could I have missed it?_

If anyone, she should have been the first to notice. She had first-hand experience loving Percy; she should have noticed Nico’s eyes lingering on his half of their clasped hands, or the pained looks she’d assumed were directed at her because she didn’t feel the same way. It seemed obvious now--the problem was that she did.

It’s been a week and two days and Nico hasn’t come back yet. It makes her anxious.

She hasn’t been able to sleep more than an hour at a time since they came back. The first night, her heart had nearly stopped, the terror that something was happening to Percy blinding her as she ran to his cabin. The fact that it’s not a monster she can kill is almost worse; there’s nothing she can do but sit outside, ready to comfort him once he struggles awake, and it drives her insane that there’s no puzzle for her to solve, that she can’t fix this.

Maybe it’s selfish of her, but she wants to talk to Nico--because Nico has been through Tartarus, and because Nico knows what it’s like to love Percy and have to watch him fight against his own mind, knowing there’s nothing to be done. Maybe the sleeplessness wouldn’t be so crushing if she had someone to share it with.

But ever since she saw him, he’s been gone; he never tells anyone where he’s going or how long he’ll be. Hazel is worried; Nico hasn’t been to see her either. Now that she knows he’d been in them, she can tell that the shadows are empty.

She hears noise from inside the cabin and jumps to her feet, pulling the door open to find Percy there in his sweatpants, hair disheveled and eyes wild like a brewing storm.

“Percy, what--”

“Nico,” he gasps, looking past her towards the beach. Then he starts running.

\--

He was helpless to do anything but watch as the water swallowed them, him of course with no sensation of drowning, Nico breathing out through his nose, bubbles of air streaming to the surface. How he sank so quickly, Percy didn’t know; lack of body fat, maybe, or lack of air to buoy him up. The heavy leather jacket wrapped around his shoulders or the chain through his belt loops. Sheer stubbornness, even.

 _Wake up_ , Percy yells at himself. Nico’s hair fans out behind him, strands floating like silk underwater.

_Wake up._

Nico’s eyes fall closed, and his mouth, blue with cold, turns up in the faintest of smiles.

_Wake up!_

It works.

He jolts upright like he’s been hit with lightning, eyes flying open. After this many years, he knows a prophetic dream when he sees one. He tears out of bed, scrambles for the door, pauses just for a second as Annabeth pulls it open. He can feel Nico’s presence in the sea, the same way he feels her eyes on him. He catches her hand and tears off, and she doesn’t miss a beat--flying next to him as though she knew he was going to start running before he did.

Her hand is warm in his, and it spreads up his arm and through his chest, melting away the residual fear. The closer they get to the beach, the stronger he can feel Nico, pulling at him from somewhere in the center of his chest.

 _No shirt, no shoes, no service._ The thought pops into his head, unbidden, and he gives a semi-hysterical laugh as they stumble onto the sand, rough under his bare feet. He wouldn’t be surprised if Annabeth were looking at him like he’s nuts, but when he turns to her, the confusion on her face is free of judgment.

“I can save him,” he says, breathless, and watches as realization widens her eyes.

“Go,” she tells him, and lets go of his hand. He turns towards the sea.

  
\--

He didn’t expect it to feel so much like falling asleep.

Yes, his chest hurts, begging for oxygen; yes, the pressure squeezes him like a vice; but hypothermia set in quickly and it feels comforting in his drowsiness, like a thick blanket or a tight, clutching embrace.

 _Why not,_ he thinks, closing his eyes. _I don’t need to keep secrets anymore._

Percy has touched him, but never held him. The ocean seems an appropriate substitute for the arms of the son of Poseidon. He imagines being swept into them, clasped against a firm chest, cradled close and bathed in warmth. His eyes flutter open and for a minute, the fantasy is real--Percy is there, swimming towards him with that same determined, protective look he wore fighting the manticore, the skeleton warriors Nico called in his mindless grief, the twin giants. His hands feel warm as they shove off Nico’s jacket; his arms hold Nico tight against him as though he never wants to let go. He even feels a change in pressure as though they’re actually rocketing towards the surface.

It’s a nice way to die, pretending that Percy cares enough to save him. His vision goes black.

\--

They break the surface hard and Nico isn’t breathing, his body terrifyingly frigid. Percy doesn’t waste time--he uses every ounce of power he has to push them onto the beach, causing a wave that goes a good ten feet past the line of the tide and soaks Annabeth to her knees. He lays Nico down on the wet sand and concentrates on the small bit of the sea inside him.

 _Out_ , he thinks, _back where you belong_.

Nothing happens.

The surf roars in his ears. Annabeth is running towards them, dropping to her knees next to him. _Out_ , he commands again in his head, shaking because Nico already looked like a walking corpse and his stillness is too complete; it drives into Percy’s heart like a knife. _Out._

Annabeth has to yank her hand back from where she’d been stroking Nico’s wet hair out of his face as he rolls to the side, water flooding from his nose and mouth in retches and hacking coughs.

Percy drags him up against his chest to feel his ribs move as gulps in air. For the first time in two months, he feels relief.

\--

“Seaweed brain,” Annabeth says, after a few long minutes of nothing but Nico’s harsh gasping. Percy stops rocking him and both of them look up at her, startled; she bites the inside of her lip, eyes stinging. Percy’s hand is still clutching Nico’s shirt in a fist so hard his knuckles are white.

“You need to get him out of those before he freezes,” she continues, and shrugs off her own sweatshirt. Percy understands immediately, but Nico looks dazed as his shirt is pulled up over his head; when Annabeth drapes her sweatshirt over his bare, trembling shoulders, his expression shifts to shock. He shrinks back against Percy like a skittish animal, like he’s afraid she might hit him. Unconsciously, Percy’s grip on him tightens.

Something in her chest swells and bursts. She leans forward and slips her arms around Nico’s shoulders, pressing her forehead to his temple; he stiffens, then slowly relaxes.

“Don’t you ever scare us like that again,” she whispers. Percy pulls her in, brings both of them close to his chest, and a moment later she feels a cold, hesitant hand curl around her forearm.

\--

That morning, when Percy and Annabeth are both late for breakfast, one of her siblings knocks on the door to Cabin Three and pushes it open. Annabeth lifts her head from Nico’s chest and fixes her brother with a stare until he blushes and backs away, quietly shutting the door after himself.

“What was that?” Nico mumbles, blinking up at her. He tries to push himself up onto his elbows, but Annabeth puts her hand on his chest and Percy’s arm tightens around his waist and he turns pink, putting his head back on the pillow.

“Nothing,” she whispers, and kisses his forehead. Percy makes a noise, still mostly asleep, and moves his leg so that all three of them are tangled together.

Percy breathes deeply and Nico softens against the pillow, and Annabeth drifts back to sleep.

 


End file.
